Curry Leaves vs. Bay Leaves: Unrelated Plants, Opposite Handling

Curry leaves and bay leaves are both aromatic leaves that go into a pot, and that’s about all they share. Curry leaves come from a shrub in the citrus family, Rutaceae; bay leaves come from the bay laurel, Laurus nobilis, in the laurel family, the same family as cinnamon. Curry leaves are best fresh, get fried in fat at the start of cooking, and get eaten with the dish. Bay leaves are usually dried, simmered for a long time and pulled out before serving. And despite the name, curry leaves are unrelated to curry powder and only rarely found in it.¹

Side by side

The two oil figures come from different studies on different samples. They show which compound leads each leaf’s oil, not a like-for-like measurement, but they do show the two leaves don’t share a dominant aroma compound.

Why they get mixed up

The names don’t help. “Curry leaf” makes you think of curry powder, but America’s Test Kitchen says curry leaves are unrelated to curry powder and only rarely found in it.¹ “Sweet neem” is another name for the curry tree, and the neem (nim) tree has similar foliage. None of that makes it a relative of bay. The cinnamon relative here is the bay laurel itself: both Laurus nobilis and true cinnamon, Cinnamomum verum, are in the Lauraceae.

A third leaf muddies things further. The Indian bay leaf, or tejpatta, is neither curry leaf nor Mediterranean bay. It comes from a tree native to the Himalayas, and Atlas Obscura describes it as closely related to the cinnamon tree. Britannica lists both curry leaves and bay leaves among the ingredients that may go into Indian curries,⁹ but doesn’t say which bay leaf it means. When an Indian recipe calls for “bay leaf,” it may mean tejpatta.

Up close, the leaves look different too. A curry leaf is compound, with up to 20 leaflets in pairs along a rib, and cooks usually strip the leaflets off. A bay leaf is a single, tough leaf.

Fresh or dried: opposite answers

For a cook, this is the most useful difference. Katzer says to get curry leaves fresh and not waste time on dried ones, which lose their fragrance soon after drying.³ Nik Sharma agrees that dried leaves are less intense than fresh.¹⁰

Bay is the other way around. Fresh bay leaves are strongly aromatic but quite bitter, and Katzer says proper drying cuts the bitterness and can even improve the flavor. He judges quality by color: the greener the dried leaf, the better.⁴

How each is cooked

Curry leaves go into hot fat first. They’re often fried in butter or oil as part of the spice mix that opens a dish. America’s Test Kitchen says heating in fat helps pull out their mostly oil-soluble flavor compounds.¹ Sharma fries them until crisp and translucent, notes that the aromas get stronger as they fry, and uses them in dal, grains, seafood and meat dishes.¹⁰ In a South Indian rasam, for example, mustard, cumin and fenugreek seeds, curry leaves and chiles go into the hot oil together until the seeds pop.¹¹

Bay leaves go into the liquid and stay there. Unlike most leaf spices, bay can cook for a long time without losing much aroma, so it suits soups, stews and sauces.⁴ López-Alt says bay brings out the meaty flavors of beef and chicken.⁷

Eat it or take it out?

Curry leaves are soft, and nobody takes them out before serving. Katzer says you can eat them without any hazard.³

Bay leaves should come out. López-Alt compares biting one to eating a fish bone.⁷ Doctors have reported two cases of bay leaves lodged in the esophagus,⁸ and one where a 2 cm piece of bay leaf penetrated the bowel wall. That report notes that bay leaves are rigid, with sharp points and edges.² These are case reports, so they show the hazard exists, not how often it happens. Bay leaves aren’t poisonous, though; Atlas Obscura calls that a misconception.¹²

Can one stand in for the other?

Only loosely. They have different leading aroma compounds,⁵⁶ so either swap changes the dish.

Bay leaf in place of curry leaves. Mediterranean bay adds a savory, herbal background, not curry leaves’ citrus.¹² Ratio (Method): Start with one bay leaf for every 8 to 10 curry leaves, simmered instead of fried, and removed before serving. More options on our curry leaf substitutes page.

Curry leaves in place of bay. Ratio (Method): In a South Asian dish, start with a small sprig of 8 to 10 leaflets per bay leaf, fried in the fat at the start. In a European stock or sauce, curry leaves add citrus where bay adds a piney, cineole note, and they’re a poor fit. See bay leaf substitutes for closer options.

Dried curry leaves in place of fresh. Ratio (Attributed): Nik Sharma suggests doubling the amount if you have to use dried leaves.¹⁰

What isn’t known

• We used only one published analysis of curry leaf oil, from a single site in Bangladesh. The sources we reviewed don’t establish how much the oil varies by origin.
• Storage advice differs (Katzer, America’s Test Kitchen and López-Alt), and none of it comes with measurements.

Related

• Curry leaves, curry leaves uses, cooking with curry leaves and curry leaf substitutes
• Bay leaves, cooking with bay leaves, bay leaf substitutes, too much bay leaf? and crushed vs. whole bay leaves
• Bay leaves vs. basil and curry powder